


Our Stellar Remnants

by Lycoria



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: A LOT of Angst, Also the Holts are determined to bring Allura back, Angst, But they're going to do it, Canon Compliant, Cheating, F/F, F/M, Fix It Fic, I'm basically doing a canon compliant way of fixing the goddamn ending, It's going to take a long time for Shiro and Keith to undo this mess, M/M, Post S8, Self Loathing, Slow Burn, like goddamn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 20:37:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17029608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lycoria/pseuds/Lycoria
Summary: Like a fiery blaze, the shuttered door to the bar opened, golden hour spilling through the entrance and casting the floor with a single blade of orange and red. The sunset blinded Shiro, and for a moment, he saw a halo appear, ringing Keith's black locks of hair like the archangel Jophiel that had shut Adam and Eve away from Eden.On the other side, paradise lost.-In which Keith returns on a mandatory vacation and meets Shiro again, a married man and two years since they had last spoken.Keith wonders why he was ever convinced to come back to EarthMeanwhile Shiro wonders about the meaning and status of his marriage-Slow burn fix it fic that contains the revival of Allura, cheating, (Kuron?), and copious amounts of self-loathing.I'm just trying to patch everything up guys.





	Our Stellar Remnants

At the ripe old age of twenty-five, Keith had finally come to terms with the fact that he makes bad decisions.

Horrible, really.

His tongue lingered uncomfortably on the back of his left canine, feeling the characteristic slimy grittiness of unbrushed teeth. Hand reaching towards the middle of his waist, where his dagger would be sheathed, he noticed the distinct lack thereof. The air had an uneasy stillness to it.

He started awake, expecting to be captured and under the hovering eyes of unknown enemies, or at the very least, the dense tropical forest of a planet light years away from all that he called home-

Keith found none of that. Nor did he find himself safe in the barracks of the blades, bunks packed close enough to feel the breath of a sleeping neighbor.

His eyes instead registered the dull beige of the blanket twisted around him on his queen-sized bed. The end table to his left was a familiar burnt orange, and from the crack of the open bedroom door, he spotted a stiff looking dusty olive couch.

Garrison issued. Keith noted.

He was in his own apartment, he followed quickly.

And if the pounding in his head and the half empty bottle of Nunvil on his dresser meant anything, he was only continuing the string of awful, no good decisions. He shifted uncomfortably, the scratch of the blanket against his legs and the ache in his lower back an indication that Garrison issued was just like he remembered it in his days as cadet.

Keith observed, curiously, how the unused pillow beside him had managed to fold itself into a crescent shape.

It was then, as if at the perfect moment to taunt him, an unwanted memory bubbled to the surface, pressing against the grey matter of his brain.

A flash of silvery hair. Hot breath and sharp teeth against his neck. Murmuring like a mantra against the tightness of his skin.

Even after all this time, he had listened to those words like a sacred right.

The memory burst, oozing regret like an open sore. Keith's fingers wrapped around his own neck in miserable humiliation, as if the gesture would finally end his existence.

 

* * *

 

“Are you sure about this?”

When he turns, he sees the look on Acxa’s face. She’s trying to hide her concern, but her eyes are soft around the edges. Her lips are stiffly set, almost as if to hold back more that she wanted to say.

They were aboard a ship headed to Earth, and in a day’s time they would reach. The Milky Way cast strange lights against her bluish skin, and for a moment Keith was reminded of the way the water of Earth’s seas rolled and rippled under sunlight.

She was familiar with the trip, having done so multiple times over the years now to see Veronica, now that the Atlas had been parked indefinitely. The two of them made an effort to see each other as much as possible, and though they were hesitant to say much, Acxa's expression when the two women were together said enough for Keith to know.

Keith, in contrast, had yet to come home for a number of years now.

It was always one thing or another. At first it was the work he had to do on Daibazaal, the nights he burnt the midnight oil and how he couldn’t possibly take the time off to make the far trip to Earth. A year later, and the travel had become easier. The paladins collectively promised to see each other more often. Keith, in contrast, couldn’t make the vow in kind. He couldn’t make the words come out.

Not when-

“Keith?”

There was actual worry now in her voice, the stress lines in between her brow. He managed a weak smile, something he had gotten better at forcing.

“I’m fine, Acxa.” His gaze returned to the Milky Way, so close he could almost feel the descent like a drag against his very bones, like he could have dipped his fingers into it, seen the starlight swirl around his fingertips. Keith knew, instinctively, that this was a homecoming. “I’m on a break from work on orders, so it’s not like I have much of a choice either.”

A mandated extended vacation, coming down from Krolia herself. After all this time, Keith had a certain weakness to his mother’s command. With a harsh slap on the back and deft fingers to pull his unruly hair into a ponytail, she had sent her own son off.

“We’ll be fine without you for a couple months. It’s not a war anymore.”

_It’s not a war anymore._

Still he felt the strange unease deep in his gut. The same one he had when he was still on the castleship, ready for another battle to rouse them from their beds. Or the one that he felt as he and his mother floated on the back of a whale, visions of the future before his very eyes. It was an anxiety, and one that he thought he could work away little by little, as the new era of the Galra continued to etch itself out in front of his eyes.

But it never left.

And so, he finally admitted his defeat, and approached the planet of blue and green hues.

 

* * *

 

The old shack was pristine, all semblance of dirt and grime wiped away from its surfaces. Even when Keith had used it for those few months after Sendak, before Honerva, it had never looked this clean.

It was a miracle, really. That the shack was so completely and utterly backwater, the initial invasion had left it untouched. The tiniest testament to once was, still stood. Both Keith and Krolia understood it as a miracle.

But now its old scent had been completely stripped, and the few remnants of his belongings had been packed away into glass boxes. He pulled back the wardrobe door to find a neatly placed pane, holographic card listing its contents.

_Paladin Keith was never one for fashion. Here is the recreated replica of his closet before he left the Earth’s atmosphere for the first time. The three shirts, two pairs of pants, and one jacket are really all that Keith had in his closet!_

“I uh… kinda forgot that this is what they ended up doing.” Lance appeared beside him, looking a bit sheepish.

They had planned to meet, help set up the house for his extended stay. Instead they had approached to the shock and surprise of the museum guests, sending both pandemonium and most of them into a meet and greet frenzy. After a barrage of impromptu autographs on souvenir items from the gift kiosk erected beside the main structure, the two of them found them observing the exhibits as if the property wasn’t his own. Keith thumbed at the velvet lining of the barricades, looking at his old corkboard and the papers he had hastily tossed aside.

He remembered, distinctly, that about two years ago he had told the Garrison they could do whatever they wanted with the shack, as long as they helped it stay standing.

At that point in time, he was sure he would never see it again.

Keith shrugs a shoulder, cracking a grin. “It’s okay. I guess I could say that I deserved it when I wasn’t being specific.”

Beside him, Lance was already deep in thought, thumb rubbing against the blue mark on his cheek in the habit that he had picked up, the way he had done in the days after the final confrontation with Honerva.

“Maybe you could tell them to temporarily close the museum and take your things out of the cases? Or maybe you could stay at the farm-” His fist made contact with the flesh of his palm. “You might have a Garrison issued apartment. They let me have one once I started visiting more often.”

Keith nodded, considering the idea, but Lance’s open expression, proud that he had thought of such an idea, visibly darkened.

“I know we’re going to see everyone at the party tomorrow but… He’s also living in the same building block, so you might see him.” Hesitant and voice small, Keith knew what he was about to say. “Shiro and-”

“It’s fine, Lance.” He cut him off, gruffer than intended. Lance didn’t seem to mind, gazing at him quietly.

Keith paced rounds in his bedroom, pretending as if he had genuinely found something interesting to look at in a gallery rather than his own bedsheets. His heart made to force its way out of his chest, and he locked onto it, willing himself to breathe.

Things weren’t going well. And all Lance did was mention his name.

He deflected then, shifting the subject of conversation. “How is uh… y’know. The thing. What Pidge and Matt are working on.”

Keith finished lamely, but Lance responded brightly, knowingly. “It’s okay Keith, you can say it like it is... I think they managed to get some Alteans to donate their DNA to the project.”

He leaned against a case protecting Keith’s beat up couch, eyes distant.

When the lions left them that night, none of them had really known what to expect. Were they gone forever? Or were they simply called to a greater purpose? Hunk had shared the very nervous thought that they now may have to all hitch a ride on the Atlas to get to their next appointments. They had left the viewing platform then, back to their sleeping quarters, minds filled with logistics and itineraries that they would have to prepare in the absence of their lions.

Instead they were greeted in the morning to a welcome sight. The five of them parked outside the Altean castle as if nothing had occurred to begin with. It was a curiosity, at least until the thought was broadcasted.

 

_She had called us to her_

_The princess_

 

In a similar fashion to what the Black Lion had done for Shiro all that time ago, nestled inside the Blue Lion’s mechanisms, laid Allura’s essence, her spirit intact. They had plucked her from the cosmos, her soul dormant and waiting since the rebirth of their timeline.

Pidge had cried then, gulping sobs. Of course Allura made it. Because in the end, everything in the universe was connected.

“I think… they’re taking their time with this because they don’t want to make this a trial and error process.” Lance’s smile was warm. “They want to do this right on the first try.”

There was some conflict immediately after, what would be done for her. The quickest solution was to put her into a holographic matrix, but it was no surprise that all of them, even Pidge and Matt themselves, found this unnecessarily cruel.

Pidge wore this certain stubbornness on her face then, the kind where her mouth was scrunched to the side as she ran the possibilities in her head. “It will take time. We don’t have Allura herself to help with this. We don’t even have the knowledge she gained from Oriande. Still, with some help… maybe we can recreate the closest replica of her body.”

Her eyes had darted towards Shiro then, almost guilty. “But Shiro, I know that you might not think this is the best decision, so-”

“It’s not the same.” Keith could hear it now in his mind, how Shiro’s voice had rumbled with his gentleness, the sincerity that held the weight of their reverence. “What you’re doing now is giving Allura a second chance.”

His right hand came up, clenching into a fist. “And regardless of the intent… what happened saved my life. I won’t forget that.”

Keith shivered, remembering what came next. The solid weight of Shiro’s robotic arm on his shoulder, the way the fingers gripped into his flesh.

“Of course, I needed a little help to turn it into a good thing from a bad thing, and thankfully Allura won’t have to go through the same thing.”

They all laughed, and their joy reverberated through his ears. Blinking back the memory over three years old now, he focused back onto Lance.

He had taken the time to console Lance the year leading up to the lions’ return with the princess. Even then, they had come to the stark reality that there were things between the two of them that weren’t nearly as different as they once suspected.

When Lance spoke of Allura, he did it delicately like the petals of the Juniberry flowers he cultivated. She was something to be marveled at, cherished and held together by his thoughts of her. The briefest moments where Keith had the time to check in with the rest of them, Lance always had something uplifting to say, words Allura herself would have spoken.

On that fateful wedding day, a year after Allura’s return and after Keith had shrugged off his celebratory white suit, he replaced it with an obscenely large bottle of hard liquor. It was one that was a favorite of his as a rowdy teen, when he was desperate to feel older and stronger than he actually was. The day had dragged on, no thanks to the press coverage, the plastered smiles on pictures, and popping celebratory streamers.

One beautiful -almost uncharacteristically so- best man speech later, he had absconded with the amber liquid under his arm, back to his hotel room.

Where Lance desired to create and protect, Keith needed to erase and destroy.

It didn’t solve anything when he broke and poured it all out. Maybe he thought that if he had finally emptied himself, like a vessel overflowing, he would have nothing left.

So he had nothing left, and that is why the next morning, when he woke to black lion socks on his feet, a slice of wedding cake, and a glass of hangover cure, Keith never mentioned what had preceded his disastrous alcohol binge.

Nor did anyone else really need to mention it, because they understood.

“I’ve been coming more often. Hunk too. I think they want us to all pitch in and help bring Allura back.” Lance in the present, now grinned at him with an open easiness. “It’s honestly perfect timing that you decided to take time off now.”

Was it, really?

Keith didn’t dare voice it. He already knew that Lance could read it off of his face.

 

* * *

 

The bar just a few minutes outside of the Garrison headquarters thumped heavy with the usual Earth music, heavy in synthetics and bass, but the typical crowds had all together disappeared, closed off for a “Garrison-only” function. Overhead, the outdated and dizzying light system of disco days past spun, casting custom Garrison and Voltron logos on the dance floor. The sight was almost charming, how such low tech from centuries gone by had withstood both time and the galactalization of the human race.

Shiro perched on top of a barstool, savoring the drink that Hunk had just made him. The liquid glowed a faint purple, in ways that reminded him of Galra ships.

“What do you think?” Hunk watched him expectantly. Bartending had become somewhat of a hobby for him, even though it wasn’t quite off from his current career of being both diplomat and gourmet chef to the galaxy.

He hummed with appreciation in response, savoring the light, almost cherry notes that ran undercurrent. “It’s good stuff Hunk, what did you put into it?”

“Oh well, it’s actually a mixture of Nunvil and another alcohol from Daibazaal, from the last time I visited.” Hunk rattled on, eyes aglow as he explained how he discovered the cocktail’s chemical components changed the colors to ultraviolet - absolutely safe, of course - and how he paired it with a mixtures of berries from Earth.

Life had been… peaceful for Shiro since he had settled down. Unlike his space faring friends, it had been some time since he had ventured outside of the galaxy for more than a press event of some sort. Even then, it was hard to get the most of them together all in one place. At the suggestion that Hunk, Lance, and Pidge would all be in town and free to spend a night out, he knew he couldn’t pass up the chance.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come along? I’m know they wouldn’t mind.”

He had tried, unsuccessfully, to convince Curtis to come along for the night. His husband instead smiling rather tensely.

“It’s okay Shiro, they’re your friends. I’ll go hang out with my friends tonight.”

Shiro, feeling a fatigue that made him unable to protest otherwise, had slipped on a change of clothes and locked the apartment door behind him.

Pidge was now leaning closer to Hunk, their heads down, discussing a way to handle Chips’s malfunction from the other day. The tiny mad scientist never managed to get the growth spurt she so heavily insisted was just around the corner, but it was clear that she had gained so much knowledge in more ways than one.

She spent her weekends going to swap moons with Coran, picking up bits and pieces of tech alongside her brother. Most often, she spammed the group chat with images of her finds, something Lance would try to combat with images of his animals on the farm. Sometimes, she even stopped by for the evening with a gadget or two, and Shiro knew it was because she believed it would change his mind and take him back the stars.

It was fine that his star exploration days were behind him. While his friends had returned to the cosmos again and again, he was fine with a soft sweater, a new pair of glasses, tea while sitting by the window.

It was fine.

“-Besides, since Keith is coming, I thought I should make him something special. Cherry is his favorite, isn’t it?”

“What?”

Lance, who had been casually sipping on his gin and tonic, visibly choked, Pidge turning to give him half-hearted slaps on the back. Shiro gingerly set his glass down, careful to not shatter the vessel and pour the glowing contents all over his hands.

“Keith’s coming?” He fought to level his voice, and surprised himself when he succeeded in doing so.

Pidge squinted in reply. “He didn’t tell you?”

The room froze, temperature dropping tangibly. Hunk fumbled with his shaker, nearly dropping it. “Uh guys… were we not supposed to say anything?”

His squeak of anxiety was accompanied with Lance slamming down his drink, grumbling as his eyebrows shot upwards. “Of course he didn’t tell him. Of course-”

“Of course, what?”

The voice has a booming quality to it, familiar in a way that none of the paladins could deny.

Like a fiery blaze, the shuttered door to the bar opened, golden hour spilling through the entrance and casting the floor with a single blade of orange and red. The sunset blinded Shiro, and for a moment, he saw a halo appear, ringing the man’s black locks of hair like the archangel Jophiel that had shut Adam and Eve away from Eden.

On the other side, paradise lost.

Then the door shut, and the bar was plunged back into a comfortable darkness. Overhead, the air conditioner sputtered off time to the beat of the next top 40 pop song.

Keith stood at the door, eyes scanning their faces in confusion. His hair had grown out, pulled back into a ponytail that was surely a subconscious sign of his involvement with the Blades. The leather jacket he wore hung on his broadened shoulders, waist and hips tapering into skin tight pants. Shiro’s mouth felt impossibly dry, and so he took a long draw from his glass, wedding ring clicking against it as he hastily scooped it back into his hands.

They locked eyes, and before Shiro could greet him, Keith turned away.

 

* * *

 

When Keith had walked in, he wasn’t expecting that Shiro would be there, right across from the entrance. The dying light of the setting sun had pierced through, crowning his silvery hair with unfair and ethereal beauty. His eyes, piercing and grey, had donned the crimson in the sky and were set aflame.

Sometimes to Keith, even way back when, back when they stood at ease side by side, he could envision Shiro unfurling his wings, ascending back to the astral plane, dissipating into cosmic light.

Shiro wore glasses now, he acknowledged, warm in a way that felt foolish.

But the surprise apparent on his face ran his blood cold.

A shaky breath, and Keith made eager strides towards Pidge, giving her a hug as she mocked him for being a Matt lookalike with his hair length. They exchanged banter, easy as the cocktail Hunk set down for him. A beautiful and foreboding purple, similar to the city lights of Daibazaal.

“Thanks Hunk,” He rasped after taking a sip, “I didn’t realize you remembered how much I like cherries.”

“What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t?” The man beamed at him, as if it hadn’t been years since the two had last seen each other.

Keith felt an hand clench around his upper arm, pulling him closer. “Speaking of friends… didn’t a certain wise and noble friend of yours tell you what the right thing to do would be to let Shiro know you were on Earth before coming to the party?”

Lance had a noticeable eye twitch as he spoke, and possibly a vein pulsing at his temple. Keith lifted his hands up in defeat, “I was busy unpacking yesterday and this morning, so I didn’t have the time.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it. You only had two bags and you didn’t even let me carry one of them.”

Lance turned then, a somewhat disappointed resignation on his face as he watched Hunk and Pidge encircle Shiro, no doubt laughing about the inaccuracy of yet another season of the Voltron television series.

“Will you ever talk to him?”

Keith opted to slam the drink back than to answer, tasting the saccharine artificial cherry left on his lips. He handed the empty glass back to Hunk, motioning for another. Lance sulked in reply, drinking his gin down in reproachful silence.

He never got the chance to badger Keith about it again, because the rest of the Garrison that had been invited began to filter in, the Paladins meeting was a catch up for just the five of them before the real party began. Keith found himself hovering towards Acxa and Veronica, conversing with the two of them.

“We’re going to buy a house together.” Acxa told him, her face open and bright in a way that Keith would have never thought possible.

Veronica’s eyes sparkled, hand slipping to clasp Acxa’s. “I just thought it was a good time to ask. We have to figure some things but… it would be nice for her to have a permanent place to come home to when she comes back from missions.”

He nodded in agreement, thinking back to the bland beige walls of his own apartment. The unrest he felt when Iverson happily told him Shiro was just across the hallway. Something itched in his skin, even when he told the two women his congratulations.

Keith broke from them, asking Hunk for another drink. He in turn, with an unsure smile, slowly took out his shaker and sent the purple alcohol cascading into a fresh glass.

The next time Keith checked his phone, it was just a bit past midnight, the majority of the officers that had come to say hello had already left, leaving mostly the paladins and a group that resembled a skeleton crew of the Atlas. The room spun, and Keith wasn’t above indulging in it like the repressed teenager he still felt like he was.

“Anyways, when are you going to take us out on a joy ride on that battleship again, Captain?” Matt had yet again neglected to cut his hair in favor of devoting all his waking hours to research, the mop of hair resting somewhere near shoulder length. He nudged at Shiro’s ribs, friendly in a way that made something in Keith ache.

The ex-captain only chuckled, tilting his head to the side. “Guys, I thought the goal was to make sure everything in the universe went back to normal. The war is over, why can’t we enjoy our time here on Earth? Discover the things we missed while we were away?”

Holt siblings joined together in a chorus of boos, harmonizing easily and in a way that couldn’t be readily understood.

“There’s so much else out there Shiro! Don’t you want to go out there and look, now that we’re free from the Empire?” Pidge’s eyes shone like the stars she gazed up at so often, her hands fisted underneath her chin.

Keith didn’t get to hear Shiro’s response, because he was already stumbling his way to the men’s bathroom, the dozen or so drinks Hunk had hesitantly provided him throughout the night finally catching up.

Or maybe the nausea, if he was honest with himself, was because he didn’t get it.

What was so good about staying Earthbound.

What was so good about Curtis and self-imposed eternal domesticity.

What was so good, that he left Keith alone?

He gripped the toilet bowl, mercifully clean, and heaved into it, allowing a few tears slip down his face. Because he wasn’t crying. He was just hurling out ultraviolet in a bathroom stall on Earth. That’s all it was.

“Hey.” Footsteps, and the unlocked stall door swung open. Metal smacked against metal in a dull thunk, and a hand came to rest on his back. “Are you okay?”

Weakly Keith turned, wiping his face in some hopeless bid for common decency. He was greeted by the vision of Shiro, eyes filled with worry as he handed him toilet paper.

It was a good thing he was already barfing, because he wasn’t quite sure how he could handle Shiro’s sudden appearance.

They hadn’t spoken in two years.

Hi Shiro, it’s nice to see you again. Sorry I’m spewing my guts out. How are you? How’s the husband?

How’s your life without me?

Keith retched again, pathetic and gurgling.

“Pace yourself, Keith.” Shiro joked. “Patience yields focus, after all.”

Beneath his fingers, the former Red Paladin went deathly still, locked into place.

“..Tell me that.” Under his breath, the words slipped out like an insidious snake ready to strike.

Shiro’s brow creased, craning to hear the murmured words. “What, Keith? I didn’t hear you.”

“I said.” And with the swiftness of only a trained Blade of the Marmora, he turned, pushing his face closer to Shiro’s. “You don’t get to _tell me that_.”

There was something small in Keith. Very small, very scared, and very wounded, that shut its eyes and begged him to stop. Because all he could succeed in doing at this very bleak moment, under the florescent lights of a dingy bar bathroom, was burn the last remnants of their relationship to the ground.

Was it worth it though? If the remains resulted in a silence that had stretched years?

He had, for so very long, held onto the hope that there would be a time, late into the night, or early in the morning, where he would hear his phone ring, a message from a far away planet called Earth. Months turned into a year, and the hard rock of realization settled at the pit of his stomach, telling him the time was long overdue.

He wasn’t like Honerva, and he would not allow himself to wallow in days of the past.

But he wasn’t Allura either, and he couldn’t so bravely face the future.

So with gritted teeth and fists in the collar of his shirt, he stared back at Shiro, allowed the man before him to absorb the full weight of his gaze.

Keith had never been one to think logically under pressure. He always needed a catalyst, a reason to stand his ground and fight through the din in his head. His Galra instinct, Zarkon had told him twice over, so often threw him to his basest instincts.

Once upon a time, it was the Paladins he had to lead to victory, it was the stakes that made him grip so tightly to the threads of rationality. He would think of his father, and the Earth he had to protect. He would think of his mother, and knew that she fought in the darkness of space, but still beside him.

Once upon a time, it was Shiro. With a hand on his shoulder, a stern but gentle word. Once, he was the light he would have followed voluntarily into the endless dark.

But to hell with it, because Keith had nothing to protect left, and nothing to prove.

“Fuck off, Shiro.” He ignored the way his words stuttered, cringed inwardly at the pathetic shuddering of his own breath. “You don’t get to tell me that. Not anymore, not after-”

Keith would have continued, except that he found himself picked up bodily, slammed against the cheap metal of the stall in a way that surely made a dent. Shiro’s robotic arm circled his neck, easily, in a way that made heat pool in his stomach, and clearly his alcohol addled brain was the reason for this poorly-timed train of thought.

“What do you want me to tell you, then?” Long dulled, the edge had come back into Shiro’s voice. The command in his tone, one that he hadn’t heard in years, made Keith instinctively attempt to straighten his spine in response. This was no longer a question. It was a threat.

“Nothing.” He replied, challenging. “I don’t want anything to do with you anymore. It’s not like that’s anything different from the past two years. When you let us all drift apart. While you stayed here and played happy house husband.”

Keith could feel the fingers close dangerously around his windpipe, and his traitorous body sung with the contact. He could feel, almost through the reverberating of his body, the way Shiro growled at him in displeasure.

He felt more alive than he ever had since the war ended.

“You know that’s not true, because you’re always there. Always.” Shiro shook his head then, as if rejecting the very thought. “Taunting me with the way you would look at me.”

Keith barked out a laugh, his face twisted in anger and confusion. “Taunting you? I wasn’t here Shiro. For two fucking years. And you never once questioned it.”

“That’s not what I...” Keith saw him struggle, poorly fashioning his sentences to convey what he truly meant.

“Then what do you mean, Shiro?” Gritted teeth, he chewed up his own words and spat them out. “Fucking tell me already. You’ve had your time to think of what you wanted to say-”

They crashed together then, like a meteorite that had traveled for millennia, finally slamming against untouched earth. It was as inevitable as the gravity that pulled them down to this very planet, the eventual culmination of far flung asteroids, how it would be dragged back into a planetary body to meet its end.

The impact would crush them, destroy the world as it was known before.

Teeth and tongue, they fought to swallow each other whole. Keith found purchase in the dip between Shiro’s shoulder blades, dug his nails in a way that he intended to hurt. Distantly, he thought of how disgusting this must have been, the recent taste of stomach acid and cherries lingering in his mouth.

As if the whole situation wasn’t already a  travesty to Shiro’s marriage.

A travesty to their so-called friendship.

Shiro didn’t seem to care, as he groaned, welcoming the press of his fingers, tightening his own grip around Keith’s neck until he heard him keen.

“That’s it, baby,” He heard Shiro breathe. “I thought you liked it rough.”

In between the sharp gasps of breath, the teeth nipping against ear, Keith hissed. “You’ve thought an awful lot about this for a married man.”

“Awful.” He repeated. “You don’t even know the half of it.”

Shiro paused then, to fling his glasses aside. They heard it clatter against the greasy bathroom floor, spinning into the next stall.

As Keith dove in for another searing kiss, his nails lengthed to claws, hands pawing against the soft, knitted sweater and undoing the weave strand by strand. Their hips undulated in unison, grinding their bodies together as if fighting to meld together. To make up for lost time, and to make up for what was lost.

Once more, like they had been before.

Once more, Keith gripped Shiro’s hand, and allowed them both to plummet into the darkness that laid below.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. Here it is. A work born of Spite, born of Love. 
> 
> I couldn't just rest on the ending of S8, be it whether or not I wanted to believe in the epilogue (or the entirety of the last episode). Regardless, I found a fun, very messy way to undo the mistakes made. It might take a while, but maybe Shiro and Keith can get their second chance. (Allura and Lance too, of course!) 
> 
> I hope you guys can enjoy it. I know we all feel just a little raw, and I offer this to you with the promise that things will be happy. 
> 
> Eventually.
> 
> Tweet at me if you want. Hope to see you guys around!


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